


Acceptance

by keita52



Series: An absolute tiger between the sheets [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 00:11:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keita52/pseuds/keita52
Summary: Vivienne has always worked with the facts of life instead of against them. What cannot be changed must be accepted. If that acceptance seems distasteful, find a way to make it palatable. Find a way to make the walls of one's cage gilded instead of barren. Find a way to make the reputation of mages work for you instead of against you.Find a way to live with the fact that the chances of you meeting your soulmate are thin. And that even if you do meet them, the chances of them being a non-mage, non-Templar mean that you will never get to be with them.





	Acceptance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tafka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tafka/gifts).



There are certain things that one learns in a Circle.

Control, first and foremost. Precision comes after that. Then comes manners and hierarchy, much subtler arts that take a significant amount of time to learn. These are structured lessons that have a beginning and … not so much an end as a point where one's instructors say that anything more must be learned by living.

Then there are the subtler lessons. The ones about how one will always be viewed, no matter what one does. What the so-called outside world thinks about mages. And the types of happiness available to Circle mages.

Vivienne has always worked _with_ the facts of life instead of against them. What cannot be changed must be accepted. If that acceptance seems distasteful, find a way to make it palatable. Find a way to make the walls of one's cage gilded instead of barren. Find a way to make the reputation of mages work for you instead of against you.

Find a way to live with the fact that the chances of you meeting your soulmate are thin. And that even if you do meet them, the chances of them being a non-mage, non-Templar mean that you will never get to be with them. Never experience the sense of completion talked about in a hundred love stories. It's exaggerated, of course, but Vivienne knows enough about magic to know that there must be _some_ sort of positive feedback when soulmates meet for the first time. The marks themselves are magic, laid there by Andraste and the Maker upon the moment of a person's birth. (At least, that is what the Chantry says, and therefore that is what Vivienne must purport to believe.)

If she cannot have that sense of rightness and completion, she will strive for happiness in all other areas.

* * *

Bastien is not her soulmate. Nor is Duchess Nicoline his. Bastien, in fact, has no mark upon his body at all. Vivienne envies him that freedom, to choose his love as he will, without the pressure of a soulmate bond upon him.

Her own mark is perpetually quiescent, a jagged green fissure in the small of her back. Bastien never comments on it, never asks what she thinks her soulmate is like and whether she will ever meet them.

She treasures the time that they are able to spend together. She treasures her friendship with Nicoline, grateful beyond words for the other woman's acceptance. She gives Bastien her heart and asks for nothing at all in return.

* * *

The chaos started in Kirkwall spreads to Orlais, and Vivienne is most displeased. She pays close attention to the intelligence from Celene's agents and discovers a group lead by the so-called Herald of Andraste attempting to push back against the chaos. She issues an invitation, makes a decision while waiting for a response. Bastien is unhappy at her decision, as it will part them indefinitely, but he respects it.

News of the Herald's arrival in Val Royeaux moves her plans forward. An enemy of hers is selected, carefully primed for a confrontation. It will not do to be seen as passive or weak. Vivienne must act, decisively, show her value and her independence in the same stroke. She will be an ally, but not a follower.

Her plans very nearly go out the window at the first sight of Maxwell Trevelyan. A handsome nobleman, fitting right in with many of her courtier guests. He is younger than she, but not by much, if she is any judge (and she is very good at judging these things). The Marquis steps forward to challenge him, and Trevelyan lifts his right hand in response.

The mark on his hand is twin to the one on her back.

Another woman, one who had not been through the same things that Vivienne had, would have crumpled and been unable to follow through. But Vivienne _always_ follows through, and her plan goes off without a hitch. She is now a part of the Inquisition.

* * *

Vivienne does not try to avoid Trevelyan, precisely, but she does not go out of her way to put herself forward either. She has the advantage of knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are soulmates. He, most likely, does not. He appears to feel some kind of pull towards her, stopping by her favored nook in Haven's Chantry to ask her questions about mages and the Circles. He is quick to fetch the tomes she asks for, presenting them to her with a smile on his face. She is gracious and charming when she accepts the books and does not presume any further.

After they relocate to Skyhold, she finds herself giving him tips on how to comport himself. Not that he needs that much tutoring; his is an established house with a reputation to maintain. Still, he does not know the ins and outs of the Orlesian court as she does, and if they are to prevent the assassination of Empress Celene, he will need to give a flawless performance.

She takes him to Val Royeaux to meet with her own personal seamstress, a courtesy she has never extended to anyone else in her years of being at court. She tries not to think about the implications. She tries especially hard when she is visiting Bastien. She hates seeing him like this, an old man, wasting away in a bed.

There is a potion that might help. She has never considered trying it, because the ingredients — one, in particular — are difficult to obtain and the instructions are exacting.

And when Maxwell Trevelyan asks her if there is anything that he can do for her, she finds herself meeting his gaze and asking for the heart of a snowy wyvern.

He asks no questions about what she needs it for. Not when she asks, and not when he comes back with the heart. She can tell that he wants to know. She respects him all the more for keeping his silence, and gives him the answer.

Vivienne sees a flicker of disappointment when she tells him Bastien is her lover. It touches her heart in a most unsettling manner. She finds that she wants to touch his hand, to offer some kind of reassurance. To tell him that his hope is not false.

(Is it?)

Instead, she creates the potion and returns to Val Royeaux with Trevelyan at her side. And it helps, unexpectedly, when she discovers that she is too late. It helps to have Trevelyan at her side as Bastien slips away. She closes her eyes against the grief that threatens to overwhelm her, even as a part of her rejoices that she saw his face one last time, saw the love in his eyes.

Trevelyan lays a hand on her shoulder. Vivienne has been very careful not to let him touch her in any sort of familiar manner, but her guard is down in this moment. She knows that he feels the rush of warmth that goes through the pair of them. Soulmates, touching in a tender moment. In mutual respect. In what might be the beginnings of love.

He meets her eyes. And says nothing.

* * *

There is no other word for what she feels as she watches Trevelyan navigate the Orlesian nobility, as he deftly outmaneuvers Duchess Florianne and prevents Celene's assassination. She is by his side when he smoothly steers Gaspard into cooperating with Celene, when he reunites Celene and Briala. When he sets her adopted country back on its proper path.

When the excitement has died down, she finds him on a terrace, looking out at the landscape of the Winter Palace. He turns, takes her hand, brings it to his mouth. All while maintaining a steady gaze.

"May I have this dance, Madam de Fer?" he asks.

She steps into his embrace and gently guides his right hand down to the exact spot of her mark, and the happiness that she never thought would be hers fills her near to bursting. The look on his face matches hers, a look that she sees for only a moment before his lips fasten on hers. Vivienne returns his kiss and embraces the love that flows through her. She has found her soulmate. She is free to claim him and to live a life with him.

She has never been so glad to be proven wrong.


End file.
